Chapter Two: Selling Moonlight to Strangers

[One advance use of BORROW ONE SOUND authorized.] Gu Ye reached into the air as though seizing a thread. "I'll borrow your 'turn it off.'" The guard's mouth moved, but those words made no sound. More strangely, every device obeying the same command lost it too. The control room cut power, yet the televisions refused to turn off, because the sound—and condition—of turning off had been borrowed. One hundred screens showed Gu Ye's face. Early workers, pedestrians, and residents gathered outside the glass doors. Gu Ye arranged the remaining thirty-two bottles into a crescent. "I don't own the moon. You're not paying for light. Someone is disappearing, and only if you see and remember her can she live until sunrise." He showed A-Li.